


Aphrodite's Child

by endeni



Series: Across the Stars [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Banners & Icons, Blanket Permission, Gen, Podfic Welcome, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7598350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endeni/pseuds/endeni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The birth of the Rebellion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aphrodite's Child

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to my awesome beta [thetalesofandromeda](http://thetalesofandromeda.tumblr.com/) for looking the fic over!

 

 

From his apartment, Magnus can see the smoke coming out of the Jedi Temple. On the HoloNet, the wildest speculations can be heard. An accident, a Separatist attack, an uprising.

Magnus feels a slight bump against his sheens and looks down to see The Chairman beeping anxiously at him. He extends a hand to pat it on the head. He can’t come up with any words of reassurance, though.

By the doors, a handful of Alderaanian guards are standing by just as anxiously.

 _Better check in with Catarina_ , Magnus thinks, just as he hears a resounding crash from the outside. A shock wave goes through the floor, the force of it pushing him back a step.

The guards spring into an alarmed stance. Magnus turns to look. There’s a dust cloud coming off his back balcony and a crashed speeder underneath.

He takes a step forward, just as the closest guard extends a hand to intercept him.

“Senator-”

“Don’t, Elias,” he says and moves the restricting hand out of the way, “there’s someone still inside.” Quickly, he goes to the balcony panel, slides it open. He takes a few steps, reaches over the vehicle and- Stars.

“Clarissa,” Magnus calls as he climbs inside to retrieve her unconscious body, “my dear, can you hear me?”

He pats her cheek and watches his friend and fellow senator slowly open her eyes.

She looks blearily around for a few seconds before slamming back to focus and grabbing Magnus’ arm.

“Magnus”, she says, “you have to warn them.”

Her tone is urgent, panicked.

Magnus is shaking his head. Stars, she’s so cold, she must be going into shock.

“I don’t understand, biscuit.” Magnus’ worried gaze goes to her very round belly: “Sit tight, we’ll get you to a medic in no time.”

“No!” And her grip becomes bruising, her other hand reaching for one of Magnus’ own… “No, medcenters, I-”

And then Magnus is drowned in images, pushed toward him at full strength by her uninitiated mind, and he can’t help but look, he can’t-

He sees Supreme Chancellor Morgernsten, his face contorted with fury.

“It was you,” Clarissa’s voice, heavy with shock and anguish. “Behind the Separatists, behind the war. You played us all like puppets. You… you killed my mother.”

Clarissa’s grief, sharp and unforgiving.

“Yes,” the Chancellor says, a twisted smile on his lips. “And now that you know, I’m going to kill you too, little bird.”

Magnus sees the captain of Clarissa’s guards throw himself into the path of an electrical blast. He sees one of the Senator’s handmaiden spread her hands and respond in kind, pushing a blast of energy against the Chancellor.

“A Downworlder,” and the Chancellor is shaking his head now, eyes wide in surprise and perverted delight. “Oh, you’ve been _naughty_ , little bird.”

“Go!” The handmaiden is screaming.

“No, Dorothea!”

“Run, milady!”

 _My child_ , Clarissa thinks, _my child is innocent_.

And: _People have to know, I have to warn them._

She forces herself to turn around, forces herself to run away, to leave her friend behind. She runs, runs until she can no longer hear Dorothea’s screams.

And then, Magnus is back into his own head, still breathing hard like he’d been the one doing the actual running.

He comes to just in time to hear patrol transports fly over them.

Magnus reaches for his powers, but it’s been so long since he actually used them it takes him a few precious seconds to draw a shadow over them all, making them undetectable.

With his heart in his throat, he watches the gunships move past his apartment.

He lets out a breath of relief.

“The Downworlders,” Clarissa is saying, her voice broken with pain and grief, “we have to- we have to warn them.”

Magnus swallows against the lump in his throat and squeezes back Clarissa’s hand.

“We will, biscuit.” And then, to Elias: “Prepare the cruiser, we’re leaving, _now_.”

 

* * *

 

The cruiser’s comm crackles to life: “Unknow ship,” a metallic voice intones, “you are not authorized for take-off.”

The words come to Magnus’ ears like through a buffer. He shakes his head. It’s hard to focus.

Magnus has never been part of the wide Force network connecting all Jedi. Hell, even since coming to Coruscant he’s done all he could to keep his presence and his powers under wraps. Trying not to look, not to be noticed.

But now, now that he’s used his powers again after abstaining for so long, now he can’t help but stare at all those bright lights dying down around him. Not just here on Coruscant, but all over the galaxy, thousands of them, one after the other. It’s like they’re calling to him: all those lives, shining at their greatest intensity right before the end. It’s a devastatingly beautiful sight and all the more horrible for it.

Magnus takes a deep breath and forces himself to look out of the viewport. A huge Republic warship is blocking out most of the night sky, casting its shadow over their cruiser. It’s almost at shooting range. Behind it, three more warships are lifting up from the planet’s surface.

This is it, Magnus thinks. We barely reached the atmosphere and our escape is already over.

Except. He can see the glint of laser shots, of volleys of fire being exchanged.

One of the three ships is sprinting ahead, desperately responding to a double-fronted assault, trying to claw its way out of Coruscant’s atmosphere.

Republic ships against Republic ships, Magnus thinks, astonishment pooling over his stomach. This is civil war.

Then, Magnus’ eyes are hit by the bright light of Coruscant’s sun. He blinks, trying to get the dark afterimages out if his vision. The warship at their heels… it stopped its chase, turned back to fire on the fleeing ship too.

Magnus watches the Republic assault ship trying to escape the combined attack and being heavily hit in the process, watches it reach that blurred stage of being indicating it to be mid-jump.

Just then, he hears a strangled intake of breath coming from Clarissa’s direction. Alarmed, he turns toward his friend. Except, for a moment, all he can see is the sudden surge going through the Force, so bright Magnus automatically brings his hands to his eyes, as if to shield them.

When he can see again, hundreds more lights have faded away and the sky outside is infinitely darker, the Republic assault ship having disappeared in a blast of fire.

Shakingly, Magnus gets up and goes to check on his friend, now lying limp on her seat.

“Unknow ship,” the cruiser’s speakers again, “stand by and prepare to be board-”

The voice cuts off abruptly, the jolt of a hyperspace jump making Magnus stumble to the ground. Out of the viewport, stars begin streaming by in white streaks.

 _Safe_ , he thinks tiredly. _For now._

 

He bends down over Clarissa, tries slapping her cheek, calling her name. Then, he tries inducing a healing trance.

It’s no use.

His powers, he thinks, they're not what they once were. They’ve been lying dormant for far too long.

Hands closed into fists, Magnus sits back on his seat, trying to stop his impotent desperation from taking hold.

We’ll reach Alderaan soon, he tells himself. Catarina will know what to do.

 _Right_. And if he keeps repeating it enough times, maybe he’ll even believe it.

He doesn’t know how _anyone_ could ever get them out of this fucking nightmare now.

With a sigh, he presses his hands against his temples.

Behind his eyes, he can still see the Republic assault ship going out in a flash of blinding light.

They must have hit their hyperdrive, he thinks. Poor bastards, what a horrible way to go.

_Still, they gave us a chance to get away._

Magnus turns to look at Clarissa’s unconscious form. Like water swirling down a drain, his mind keeps circling back to the memories she showed him, the column of smoke rising from the Jedi Temple.

They’re all gone now, he thinks. Or about to.

_And we’re next._

 

* * *

 

Catarina is waiting for them by Aldera’s spaceport, the golden fabric woven into her hair shining bright against Alderaan’s rising sun.

“My Queen,” Magnus says as he walks down the boarding ramp.

“Magnus,” she says and comes forward to squeeze him into a hug, “thanks the stars you’re okay, we feared the worst.”

“We got away,” Magnus says. “Barely.”

He turns to watch Clarissa being transported down the ramp, her body lying motionless on the stretcher.

 

* * *

 

Catarina is shaking her head, arms crossed in front of her, the long sleeves of her traditional dress bound up to allow her greater ease of movement, hands already covered in medical gloves.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she says. “It’s like there’s something, some dark presence, and it’s been consuming her from the inside.”

Luke is walking up and down the corridor, his expression thunderous.

“You’re saying we can’t save Jocelyn’s daughter.”

“I’m saying there’s nothing more we can do,” she says, her mouth pressed into a tight line, “Nothing than _I_ can do.”

And if she can’t, Magnus thinks, nobody can.

He turns back to look at the door of Clarissa’s hospital room.

“We can make her comfortable,” Caterina continues. “And we _can_ save the baby.”

As she speaks, the crying of a newborn erupts through the air.

Quickly, Luke walks back into the room.

Magnus and Catarina follow him inside.

“It’s a boy,” the med droid is saying, a tiny, scrunched-up figure held between its mechanical arms.

“Joss,” Clarissa says in response, her face washed up and tired, and Magnus thinks: Of course, after Jocelyn Fray.

“Joss,” Luke confirms with a nod, one of his big brown hands raising to gently stroke Clarissa’s hair. Luke’s teeth are biting into his lower lip, hard, as if trying to stop the pain from coming out.

“His father… is a Jedi,” Clarissa says, her voice down to a whisper.

Catarina, Luke and Magnus look at each other and Magnus can see his own thoughts reflected into their eyes: Whoever the father was, he’s probably dead by now.

Magnus watches Luke bend down once more toward Clarissa, his expression determined and serious. “By the love I had for your mother, I swear I’ll take care of this child as if he were my own.”

With a small sigh of relief, Clarissa closes her eyes.

A moment later, the monitors on the wall start beeping frantically, announcing her death.

Quietly, Catarina moves to shut off the machine.

Silence falls on the room, the soft wailing of an orphaned child the only sound filling the air.

 

* * *

 

Looking out of the royal palace, Magnus can see more and more ships crowding over Aldera’s spaceport, Downworlders seeking the protection of Alderaan’s Immortal Queen.

In the background, the slow lament of thousands of mourners echoes from the HoloNet. Magnus glances back for a moment, to the multitude of lights illuminating Theed’s blue waters. He catches a glimpse of Clarissa’s red hair lying against a crown of white flowers, her belly still heavily pregnant.

Magnus’ gaze turns to Catarina then, who’s gently cradling little Joss in her arms, her blue skin a stark contrast against the warm glow of the baby’s cheeks.

Luke is looking away from the funeral too. He has a hand on his wife’s shoulder and his eyes, still brimming with tears, are tenderly fixed on the newborn.

Magnus watches his friends and, for a moment, his traitorous brain can’t help but think back of Camille.

Luke and Catarina’s union has never been anything more than political. A solid partnership, cemented by their love for Alderaan and its people, but nothing more. _By the love I had for your mother_ , Luke had said.

Maybe Camille was right, Magnus thinks. Maybe love isn’t for people like them. People like himself and Catarina, whose lifespans condemn them to live on long after most other species find their death.

Still, looking at Alderaan’s royal family, so enraptured by its newest member, Magnus can’t help feeling a sudden surge of hope. Even in these dark times, war at their doors and sorrow in their hearts… there’s still some wonder to be found.


End file.
